Good piece by Thomas Friedman.

I wish someone HAD asked dame Palin that, should all americans follow her path and decide that paying taxes were 'not patriotic' -- then where did she expect to find the dough to pay for her son's body-armor in Iraq?

konark_girl:

Good piece by Thomas Friedman.

I wish someone HAD asked dame Palin that, should all americans follow her path and decide that paying taxes were 'not patriotic' -- then where did she expect to find the dough to pay for her son's body-armor in Iraq?

I don't mind government taxes so much, it's the inflation taxes that bug me. None of the pols seem to want to talk about the 300% inflation tax that the companies have slapped on oil over the last seven years.

How 'bout that Bernanke? Rate cuts on top of a $1 trillion deficit with the cost of the bailout still to come. Starting to feel like Weimar Germany and we all know what that led too. Economic chaos leads to political extremism.

I just saw something on Greg Mankiw's blog on inflation taxes....

<link>

I think the obvious follow-up question is -- if *paying* your taxes is NOT patriotic, then would *cheating* on your taxes be considered patriotic ?

Would Sarah Palin consider me more deserving of american citizenship if I decided not to report the four hundred dollars or so I net annually from my dance classes when I file my income taxes ????

I don't know if it would change whether you are more 'deserving' of citizenship or not, but it might make you more American...

On a more serious note, I believe that is it patriotic to pay one's fair share willingly and without complaint but it is also patriotic to ensure to the best of your ability that the share you are paying is indeed 'fair'.

Overpayment results in bloated Gov't, not efficiency.

Like now.

So the government running hundreds of billions in the red every year is due to overpayment of taxes??

How odd!

SoreLoser:

So the government running hundreds of billions in the red every year is due to overpayment of taxes??

How odd!

In effect, Yes.

Once we gave Washington the feeling that the citizenry could be bled for almost any amount, we removed the necessity for fiscal restraint. It's not in our nature to exercise restraint when drawing from an unlimited pool, even if we know in reality that the pool is no really unlimited.

Who 500 (or even 200) years ago seriously worried that we would pollute the oceans or deplete our natural resources? Nobody, because they were 'unlimited'.

Except of course they weren't, no more than the resources of the US.

Once we gave Washington the feeling that the citizenry could be bled for almost any amount,

I suspect that if the govt actually had to tax their current citizenry for all its spending, there would be a great deal of restarint, whether it be in bloated programs or plunging the country into war.................

The big problem is that the govt DOESN'T tax its current citizens in proportion to its spending. Rather, it passes on the burden to future generations (who, alas, cannot express outrage at this time) through its ballooning deficits. Essentially, today's american citizens get a credit card with no spending limits, and they're grandkids will get to foot the bill. THAT'S what got the nation into this mess.

Boss Greer:

Once we gave Washington the feeling that the citizenry could be bled for almost any amount, we removed the necessity for fiscal restraint.

How does that explain, say, the past 16 years? For eight of them, we had higher taxes and decreased spending. We used the increased revenue to pay down our debt. We paid off so much debt that Greenspan was worried about ‘paying it off too fast’ (lolz). The debt was dwindling so fast that the makers of the National Debt Clock turned it off because it was ‘sending the wrong message’. <link>

For the other eight years, we lowered taxes and increased spending. Last week they had to turn the National Debt Clock off to add more digits.

I wouldn’t encourage anyone to pay a nickel more in taxes than they legally owe, but I certainly support tax increases to start to pay down our monstrous debt. And yes, that is patriotic – no taxes, no America.

I agree completely, the 'ability' to defer the debt to the future is part and parcel of the problem.

Of course I think that supports my point of 'unlimited' because hey, the future is unlimited so our funds must be as well.

Except that apparently doesn't work out so well in practice...

Since debt is not an inherently bad practice, how would you, a professional economist, structure legislation to allow prudent necessary or emergency debt without opening the door to unlimited debt?

SoreLoser:

Elect Democrats! :-)

Annual addition to national debt has doubled in the almost two years that Pelosi and Reid have led their respective houses of Congress. '06's addition to national debt, the true deficit, was $500 billion. Addition to the national debt in the last 365 days has been $1.194 trillion. I think the numbers argue against any idea that current Democrats will be any help as our country crumbles.

"Since debt is not an inherently bad practice, how would you, a professional economist, structure legislation to allow prudent necessary or emergency debt without opening the door to unlimited debt?"

I would suggest dedicated bonds. As a for instance, the interstate highway system, new highway bonds issued for a specific roads project, preferably paid off by tolls on the road.

As for emergency debt, best is for the government to have a rainy day savings account for the next Katrina or 9/11. Debt is bad and has killed this country. I don't think we'll recover from this to the point of being a great country anymore.

Well, its 'other income', so it just ends up as icing on top of all my regular earnings......................­..